1 Friday, 6 September 2002

2 [Open session]

3 --- Upon commencing at 2.18 p.m.

4 [The accused entered court]

5 [The accused Talic not present]

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Good afternoon. Could you call the case,

7 please, Madam Registrar.

8 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honours. Case number

9 IT-99-36-T, the Prosecutor versus Radoslav Brdjanin and Momir Talic.

10 Thank you.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Brdjanin, good afternoon to you. Can you hear

12 me in a language that you can understand?

13 THE ACCUSED BRDJANIN: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your

14 Honour. I can hear you and understand you.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you. You may sit down.

16 Appearance for the Prosecution.

17 MS. KORNER: Joanna Korner, assisted by Denise Gustin, case

18 manager. And obviously not for very long this afternoon.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Good afternoon to you, Ms. Korner.

20 Appearances for Radoslav Brdjanin.

21 MR. ACKERMAN: Good afternoon, Your Honours. I'm John Ackerman

22 along with Marela Jevtovic for Mr. Brdjanin.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you. Good afternoon to you.

24 Appearances for General Talic.

25 MR. ZECEVIC: Good afternoon, Your Honours. Slobodan Zecevic and

1 Natasha Ivanovic-Fauveau for General Talic.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you. Good afternoon to you too.

3 Just for the record, General Talic is not present today. Perhaps

4 some kind of formal explanation may be forthcoming from the Defence bench,

5 the Defence team.

6 MR. ZECEVIC: Yes, good afternoon, Your Honours. Actually, I have

7 been informed around noon today by the Registry that our client will not

8 be available for this afternoon's session because he's in hospital

9 undergoing some examination by the specialist, and this examination is

10 apparently scheduled for this afternoon and therefore he was not able

11 to -- to be present in this session. However, we didn't have the

12 opportunity to contact our client at all, since he was at that time

13 already on his way to the hospital. So -- those are the only information

14 that we have at this moment.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Do I take it that this is not an appointment that

16 had been fixed beforehand but something that cropped up unexpectedly?

17 MR. ZECEVIC: Your Honours, I don't have any information. The

18 last information that I have is that our client was having some problems

19 with his lungs and he underwent the medical -- medical exam by Dr. Falke

20 [phoen] in the Tribunal UNDU. And as far as I know, he was supposed to

21 receive the results of the test this morning. And it is my assumption

22 only that apparently the results have shown that he's not in a very good

23 medical status and therefore was brought to the hospital. That is my

24 assumption, because I don't have any information whatsoever. Thank you.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Ms. Korner.

1 MS. KORNER: It's probably a mistake asking me to say something,

2 Your Honours, because --

3 JUDGE AGIUS: If -- whether you have information on this.

4 MS. KORNER: I find it absolutely incredible that an accused can

5 be taken to hospital without any information being provided to his

6 counsel, let alone to us -- well, I mean, actually let alone to his

7 counsel. But we all arrive at court, nobody even having the courtesy

8 to -- I don't know whether Your Honours were informed.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: We were informed at about noon.

10 MS. KORNER: Well, that was all very well and good of the

11 Detention Unit or whoever's duty it is, but they never told us.

12 Mr. Filipovic would never have been brought here, presumably has worked up

13 into giving evidence again. And I'm sorry, I think it's disgraceful.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: And I tried to find out in the meantime whether this

15 was expected to be a one-afternoon visit to stay in hospital, or a visit

16 to the hospital, or whether this was something which was expected to take

17 longer.

18 Do you have any information on that, Mr. Zecevic?

19 MR. ZECEVIC: None, Your Honour. I just wanted to inform the

20 Trial Chamber that immediately after I learned from the Registry of this

21 information that my client will not be available, we phoned the legal

22 officer informing this Trial Chamber, and we assumed that the legal

23 officer would be in contact with the Prosecutors as well. I mean, that

24 is our assumption.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: The information that I have is that this is only

1 this afternoon. That's the information, because I specifically asked for

2 the information for obvious reasons, to know -- to be able to address you

3 in particular with regard to the witness, because if this is something

4 that's going to take time, then obviously one would start to think

5 about --

6 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I don't blame -- I mean, I imagine the

7 legal officer thought that we would have been informed by the Registry,

8 and I think that's with some justification. It's not the job of the legal

9 officer to go around phoning the Prosecution. And therefore, I do

10 register a strong complaint about the haphazard way that this has gone

11 about.

12 Your Honour, my concern is, I don't know whether -- was this a

13 planned appointment, or did it suddenly arise this morning?

14 JUDGE AGIUS: The information that I have is that it was not

15 exactly planned. What was planned was for some examinations to be held

16 this morning, which would not have interfered with the sitting. But

17 apparently something went wrong and everything had to be shifted to the

18 afternoon. Sometime -- a decision was taken sometime late this morning.

19 That's the information that I have. I haven't been told either that no

20 examinations were conducted this morning. I don't know about that.

21 What I was told was that the decision to take General Talic to

22 hospital for further examination was taken sometime towards 11.00 this

23 morning, something like that. I was informed later, and my colleagues

24 were informed a few minutes after I was informed through my ALO.

25 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honour, I take it that there's no

1 possibility of proceeding in his absence, because he hasn't given

2 instructions to that effect.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Yeah. Exactly. I mean, I didn't even pose the

4 question because it almost goes without saying.

5 MS. KORNER: But Your Honour, it clearly has a knock-on effect for

6 witnesses for next week. I would respectfully ask that we be given

7 information this afternoon because witnesses are flying in on the basis of

8 what was happening next week on a staggered basis. Now, clearly -- and

9 Mr. Filipovic was expecting to leave. I think, on -- he's got a job, and

10 this delay may mean that he'll have problems with his employer. So --

11 well, the first thing I'd ask is for Your Honours to explain to

12 Mr. Filipovic --

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Yeah. Definitely we will do.

14 MS. KORNER: -- the situation and see if there's any real problem.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay.

16 MS. KORNER: But secondly, it will push back, again, the witnesses

17 as far as next week is concerned. I appreciate, and I understand the

18 difficulties in estimating length of cross-examination, but it may assist

19 if I was told yesterday give or take that Mr. Ackerman would be the rest

20 of this session and Mr. Zecevic probably Monday. And so we'd organise the

21 next witness to be here on Tuesday. Now, if I can take it that we're just

22 pushing things back until Wednesday, that would help.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Zecevic.

24 MR. ZECEVIC: I assume that we will finish the cross-examination

25 by somewhere during the session Wednesday, yes.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Ackerman.

2 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I spent -- I spent the morning going

3 through my planned cross, and I've added a little but I've subtracted

4 more, so I may take a little less time than I had originally planned.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Yes.

6 MS. FAUVEAU-IVANOVIC: [Interpretation] I should also like to

7 inform the Chamber that this morning we filed a motion to exclude the

8 evidence relative to Stara Gradiska. We should like to have a part of the

9 hearing sitting on Monday devoted to this matter, to this request of ours.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Ms. Korner.

11 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honour, I'd rather -- if we're going to

12 sit Monday, it's most urgent that we know what the situation with

13 General Talic is.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: I'm assuming throughout that we are.

15 MS. KORNER: Yes. In that case, I think we -- I mean, the issue

16 of the evidence he gave in respect of Stara Gradiska is excluded is

17 something we could deal with at the conclusion of his evidence, because

18 he -- all right.

19 MS. FAUVEAU-IVANOVIC: [Interpretation] No. We would like to have

20 a decision before continuing with the cross-examination, or rather, before

21 we begin our cross-examination.

22 MS. KORNER: Well, in that case, Your Honour, I don't know what

23 the situation is on -- on Monday as regards free courts. But in the event

24 that we can go on because General Talic is back, I wonder if we could deal

25 with that outside the normal court hour. In other words, if there's a

1 courtroom available in the afternoon, because we can deal with it at the

2 end of Mr. Ackerman's cross-examination.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: We'll check about that.

4 MS. KORNER: I know that Stakic will not be sitting on -- or I'm

5 pretty certain -- no, I do, I know that Stakic will not be sitting on

6 Monday.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: We'll check about that. And if it's necessary,

8 we'll take --

9 On the other hand, Madam Fauveau, I need to check this, but I --

10 if I'm not wrong, a decision has already been taken by this Trial

11 Chamber. When the matter -- when the matter arose yesterday, I think, the

12 day before yesterday and you objected to questions -- further questions

13 being put to the witness on who -- on the question that actually objected

14 to a specific question which Ms. Korner put. The question was: Who were

15 the guards, whether they were military police, ordinary police, and

16 whatever. And you objected. And there was a cross-debate -- a very short

17 cross-debate, I would say taking not more than five minutes. And we did

18 take a decision. So I'm -- I'm just pointing this out to you. I mean,

19 it's ...

20 MS. FAUVEAU-IVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. President. But I

21 thought this was a decision regarding the objection that I made. In this

22 case we are requesting the exclusion of all evidence concerning

23 Stara Gradiska, the evidence presented by the witness yesterday and

24 evidence that any other witnesses may produce.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. We'll deal with it Monday. We'll deal

1 with it Monday.

2 I think you would agree, Mr. Zecevic, that there is nothing else

3 we can do today except call the witness.

4 Usher, please, could you bring in the witness and I will explain

5 to him the unfortunate situation.

6 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, and while that's being done, I wonder

7 if -- I'm asked to find out for the purposes of scheduling and stopping

8 witnesses coming up. The witness who's following, who is the witness who

9 was going to come originally, can anybody give me any idea -- in

10 particular, it affects General Talic, I think -- how long he'll take in

11 cross-examination. He's going to be a full session in chief. I mean,

12 nobody has planned it so far.

13 MR. ZECEVIC: We haven't heard the witness, Your Honours. I mean,

14 how can we -- we have some assumption, but we don't know what is he going

15 to testify.

16 MS. KORNER: He will be testifying about Muslim resistance,

17 amongst other things.

18 MR. ZECEVIC: Yes. Well, I assumed that, but I cannot give my

19 estimate before I hear the witness.

20 MS. KORNER: Thank you.

21 [The witness entered court]

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Remind me to tell you about some probable or almost

23 definitive changes in the schedule for the rest of this month.

24 It's okay. Mr. Filipovic, you may sit down. I'm afraid I have

25 bad news for you.

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know what kind.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: One of the accused, General Talic, has been taken to

3 hospital this morning and is not in a position to be with us today for

4 this sitting.

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] He has been taken there, and I've

6 just come from hospital.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. The consequence arising out of the absence of

8 the accused Talic from this courtroom is that without his consent, we

9 cannot proceed today, because one of the basic principles of a fair trial

10 is that all proceedings except where specifically provided for by the law,

11 except where accepted, must be conducted in the presence of the accused.

12 So I'm afraid that this afternoon you and us and everyone else in this

13 courtroom is in the same position. We are in the same position. We've

14 come here for nothing.

15 It is hoped, as I understand it, that this is only a transient

16 incident, that General Talic would be in a position to be with us on

17 Monday; and therefore, having said that, I am sure that you understand

18 that we can do nothing else today, that you will be escorted back to your

19 hotel, and we will continue doing the rest of the work that we have that

20 has nothing to do with this case and then we will continue with your

21 evidence on Monday, hoping to finish with you as early as possible.

22 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I -- I understood the witness to say

23 that he'd just come from hospital. I wasn't aware that he'd been taken to

24 hospital this morning.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Neither was I. You know, I mean this -- we should

1 know about -- were you taken to hospital this morning?

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I was. I was going there for

3 dressings.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: And no one tells us. You don't know. We don't

5 know.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It doesn't matter. I thought it

7 would all be over by now.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Anyway, that's all I have to tell you.

9 Unfortunately we can -- we can't have a sitting, a session, this afternoon

10 because of what I explained to you, and so the usher will escort you back.

11 If during the weekend, between now and Monday, you need any medical

12 attention or any other kind of attention, please do not -- I suppose you

13 have been given contacts. You know what to do. And --

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. There's no problem in that

15 regard.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Please -- we'll make sure that you are given all the

17 attention you require. And then please, God, we'll meet again on Monday.

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you. Goodbye.

19 [The witness stands down]

20 JUDGE AGIUS: That's it. The session is over for -- for this

21 afternoon.

22 Yes, Mr. Ackerman.

23 MR. ACKERMAN: You were going to tell us about the schedule for

24 the rest of the month.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Inneke, correct me if I am wrong, but next

1 week we are sitting in the morning, as scheduled, from Monday through

2 Thursday. Please do remember, Ms. Korner, that Friday is a court

3 maintenance day next week, so I -- I think you should earmark just one

4 witness coming over.

5 MS. KORNER: [Microphone not activated] I think, Your Honour,

6 we'll stop everybody --

7 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Ms. Korner. Microphone,

8 please.

9 MS. KORNER: Sorry. Thanks. We'll stop everybody else from

10 coming. I mean, this is just going to push the scheduling back.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: And then we have the week after we were scheduled to

12 sit the entire week in the afternoon. I am pleased to announce that with

13 the exception of Tuesday, the 17th of September, the rest of the week we

14 can sit in the mornings. It's Courtroom III -- it's in Courtroom III, if

15 I remember right.

16 Then if I manage to cancel an appointment that I had already made

17 for Friday, the 27th of September, which was going to be court maintenance

18 day, we might try to recover a sitting and sit on that Friday.

19 Mr. Ackerman is going to file an official objection by tomorrow morning

20 giving us time to think about it.

21 MR. ACKERMAN: I have a ticket.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: You have a ticket. All right. Then we'll see --

23 Yes.

24 MS. FAUVEAU-IVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I also have

25 some professional obligations in Paris.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Anyway, but let's stop there for the

2 time being.

3 And then there will be some changes in October, but I still need

4 to confirm those, again shifting -- but they are odd days, you know, not

5 an entire week, for example. I haven't been able to move an entire week,

6 but I might ...

7 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm afraid I thought we were sitting the

8 27th of September. I knew we had the following week off, but I didn't

9 realise we had the 27th of September off as well.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Court maintenance as well. We have two court

11 maintenances this month. Because on the 27th of September, that week, we

12 are in Courtroom I, and there is court maintenance for Courtroom I. And

13 13th September, that -- next week we are sitting in Courtroom III, and

14 there is court maintenance -- this is where there is going to be some

15 changes.

16 MS. KORNER: Is there any good reason that Your Honours know of

17 why we shouldn't simply sit in Courtroom III throughout?

18 JUDGE AGIUS: I've tried, but it's not possible.

19 MS. KORNER: I'm sure there's some logical UN reason why that

20 can't happen.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: I've tried. Maybe now with Martinovic, Simic and --

22 there may be some changes. Actually, with regard to October, there

23 definitely will be some changes which will affect at least one, I think,

24 court maintenance day, maybe two -- maybe two. One in November, and one

25 in October. But there is one in October which we definitely can't move,

1 and that is the -- I thought it was the 11th.

2 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, may I just make a suggestion --

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Anyway, we'll give you all the information later on.

4 MS. KORNER: May I make a suggestion for this afternoon, and

5 that's this --

6 JUDGE AGIUS: You want to read?

7 MS. KORNER: No, I don't want to read. No, no. I couldn't stand

8 to have Mr. Ackerman walk out of court. No, but Madam Fauveau's motion.

9 If she gives us all a copy now, we can look at it. I can't believe this

10 is going to be an issue that requires a great deal of -- and we could deal

11 with it -- perhaps if Your Honours were to rise for one hour so we can all

12 have a look at it.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: But she would also require the permission of her

14 client.

15 MS. KORNER: Well, for a legal argument, Your Honour?

16 JUDGE AGIUS: I would imagine so. I mean, it's part of the

17 proceedings.

18 MS. KORNER: I mean, that's -- that's pure law. It's not

19 listening to evidence.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: If it's in open court, yes. I mean ...

21 MS. KORNER: And there's no way of contacting General Talic to

22 find out whether he'd be agreed to the legal argument?

23 MS. FAUVEAU-IVANOVIC: [Interpretation] I don't know,

24 Mr. President. It depends on the Registry. And the Detention Unit.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: What I think, in any case, Ms. Korner, I would not

1 anticipate this matter to last more than a few minutes of debate. I mean,

2 it's -- obviously, I mean, we are open to conviction on -- because I

3 understand to an extent the substance of the argument of -- of

4 Madam Fauveau in the light of the decision that was taken by Judge Hunt,

5 which we will consult between now and Monday, obviously, because we were

6 taken by surprise last time, two days ago. But obviously Monday we will

7 not be taken by surprise. We are forewarned, and we will be looking deep

8 into the decision of Judge Hunt.

9 So I think that if, however, you can provide Ms. Korner with a

10 copy of your motion so that at least they start preparing themselves.

11 MR. ZECEVIC: Your Honours, the motion was filed at 1.45 this

12 afternoon, so I presume that it's -- it will be --

13 MS. KORNER: We want a copy now, please. I assume you have a

14 copy.

15 MR. ZECEVIC: Well, we have our copy.

16 MS. KORNER: If you give it to us, we can photocopy it.

17 MR. ZECEVIC: Of course.

18 MS. FAUVEAU-IVANOVIC: [Interpretation] The problem is that the

19 decision of Judge Hunt and all the filings of the parties are annexed to

20 this decision, and that I don't have with me so I can only provide you

21 with the motion.

22 MS. KORNER: No, that's all -- we've got all the filings. We just

23 need the motion that's been put in today, just a copy of that. Thanks.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. So that's it for today. And if together

25 we could find out what's the position with regard to when to expect --

1 whether to expect General Talic to be back Monday, I would appreciate

2 sharing that information through the registrar, because we need to know.

3 And I haven't managed to obtain the necessary information or the full

4 information anyway.

5 I thank you. Good afternoon. See you Monday.

6 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned

7 at 2.44 p.m., to be reconvened on Monday,

8 the 9th day of September, 2002, at 9.00 a.m.

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